Local son returns to finish Farm to Plate on Sept. 28

On Saturday, September 28, Hazel Grove Farm Bureau Community Council will be presenting the sixth and final demonstration for the Richland County Farm to Plate Project at the Shelby Farmers’ Market. This demonstration will feature Chef Rob Fighter who has returned back home to North Central Ohio and is currently the Corporate Personal Chef at R.S Hanline in Shelby.Chef Rob will be preparing and sharing Traditional SE Louisiana Maque Choux Corn, Rob’s Ragin' Cajun Skillet Corn and Delectable Butternut Squash with Maple and Black Walnuts, all prepared from fresh items available locally.

Richland County Farm to Plate is a program of the Farmer’s Market in Shelby and partners including the Richland Community Development Group Local Foods/Ag sector, the Shelby Foundation and Our Ohio. A host of other partners, supporters and volunteers have joined together to provide this exciting program linking the growers of our local foods with local chefs and with consumers. The cooking demonstration includes the opportunity for taste testing. Recipes and starter kits are available. Kids are included in healthy activities too. This is a great opportunity to learn about and support our local food economy, and to be newly inspired to eat healthy and to eat fresh.

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We have been so blessed during this series to have the many growers on hand at the Shelby Farmers’ Market each week! Truly people can watch the demo, visit vendors at the market to get the ingredients and then make the dishes at home. The experience has been all that the Hazel Grove Farm Bureau Community Council and supporting partners hoped for and more. This week, as we near the end of the growing season for many plants, items will be available from farmers and producers we have highlighted before. Special thanks again to Elvin Burkholder at Lakeside Produce, Terry Scherer, Paul Burkholder of Windmill Nursery and Brandi Fishpaw. You can get more background on these suppliers on the Facebook page and at the event on Saturday.

Rob Fighter began cooking in 1979 and worked at the Ponderosa and Park Place hotel in Mansfield. He left Mansfield to work as a Sous Chef at several leading restaurants and hotels in Columbus. Rob worked at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress, a premier flagship hotel for the company in Orlando and was later transferred and promoted twice with Hyatt to properties in Columbus, OH and Winston-Salem, NC. Rob was then recruited into Club Corporation of America's Executive Chefs apprenticeship program where he worked at an exclusive city club in St. Louis. Upon completion of the program he was promoted to Executive Chef at a large resort in Destin, FL. He later moved on to work with one of New Orleans premier caterers as their Executive Chef and Director of Operations. He also spent a short time at an acclaimed restaurant in the French Quarter.

Rob took a hiatus from cooking in the 90s to explore other business interests which landed him in Memphis, TN. It was there he returned to cooking as the Corporate Chef for a major southern grocery chain where he was hired to design and implement a restaurant style "meals to go" program.

Family circumstances led Rob home to Mansfield and back to his true passion. He is currently the Corporate Personal Chef at R.S Hanline in Shelby and he has been preparing for his just launched new company, Mid Ohio Culinary Finesse. This will offer innovative Personal Chef service for individuals and families as well as onsite event services for groups from 25-300. He's also just begun to expose the area to world class Memphis style BBQ via a trailer smoker he had custom built in AL this summer.

Through a second company, Now, That's Delicious, LLC, Rob will be publishing the first of a bi-annual series of cookbooks in early 2014. Later in Spring will begin the launch of a collection of seasonings, rubs, salsas, mustards and sauces based on recipes created, tested and perfected over last three decades. Please watch with us for all the exciting, tasty things Chef Rob has in store!